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An excerpt from the forthcoming novel Atomic Sunrise.

by Raymond Buckland

Prologue
August, 1945

The heavily-laden, four-engine bomber droned on through the late afternoon sky, its four-bladed propellers cutting a path high above the Pacific Ocean toward its destination. On board, the emotionless navigator checked and re-checked his calculations, assuring himself that he had the craft on course. In the tail and in the upper and lower turrets, three pairs of eyes scanned the skies for any signs of enemy interceptors. All was clear.

The pilot and co-pilot perused their instruments, conscious of the fact that they were now less than an hour away from the all-important target. The flight engineer checked the engines and gear, making sure that the flying battleship would be a solid, smooth platform for the launching of the bomb. At a speed of four-and-a-half miles a minute, the bomb had to drop from a height of more than five miles and come within Read the rest of this entry »

March 1990

March 1990- Vol. 43, No. 3.

by John Keel

The Fugo Balloons

It was not known to the general public that dur­ing the war the Japanese were attempting to use fire balloons against the West Coast of the United States. —Manhattan Project: The Untold Story of the Making of the Atomic Bomb by Stephane Groueff, 1967.

While American school children were engaged in scrap metal drives for the war effort in the 1940s, Japanese children were put to work on a much more imaginative project. They were asked to build large paper bal­loons that could be filled with hydrogen and set adrift in the jet stream. Ultimately, a total of 9,000 of these Fugo balloons were built and launched. How many finally reached the U.S. will never be known, but we do know that several did manage to make the long trip. Read the rest of this entry »